1 . Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electro-optical device and electronic apparatus suitably employed for displaying a variety of information. More specifically, the invention relates to an electro-optical device used as a two screen displaying device which shows different viewers at different viewing positions different images, or to an electro-optical device used as a three dimensional displaying device which displays a three dimensional image.
2 . Related Art
Known examples of an electro-optical device include a two screen displaying device which provides different images for different viewers at different viewing positions and a three dimensional displaying device which displays a three dimensional image. An example of a display system of such kind of display device includes a parallax barrier system. For example, JP-A-2005-78094 discloses a visual display unit which has a liquid crystal display panel having two substrates, one of which is located closer to the viewers and provided with a parallax barrier disposed thereon. The parallax barrier has an array of vertically extending openings formed and arranged at predetermined positions thereof in a stripe pattern. For example, when a first and second images are provided for first and second viewers at different viewing positions, respectively, the openings in the parallax barrier are formed to allow the first viewer to see only the first image and the second viewer to see only the second image. Furthermore, in a display device which provides a three dimensional image for a viewer, openings in the parallax barrier are formed and arranged to allow the viewer to see an image for the left eye with the left eye and an image for the right eye with the right eye.
Incidentally, it is necessary to place the parallax barrier and a displaying element separated by a certain space from each other, whereby the different images are visible from different directions. Therefore, the display disclosed in JP-A-2005-78094 has a transparent layer such as of a resin located between the parallax barrier and an image-displaying layer.
However, the resin layer is required to have a thickness as large as 30 μm to 60 μm, according to the technology disclosed in JP-A-2005-78094. Such a large thickness tends to cause an unevenness of the resin layer, which may disadvantageously lead to a crosstalk. Here, the word “crosstalk” means leakage of light into one image from another image, which is due to various factors. For example, in a case where the first and second images are provided for the first and second viewers in different positions, respectively, the first viewer sees not only the first image but also part of the second image and the second viewer sees not only the second image but also part of the first image due to the occurrence of the crosstalk. In case of a display device for presenting a three dimensional image for a viewer, the viewer sees with the left eye not only an image for the left eye but also an image for the right eye. Likewise, the viewer sees with the right eye not only the image for the right eye but also part of the image for the left eye.